Yeah, this is a solid game that I’m enjoying, but they missed some great opportunities to easily make it a fantastic game. The game only working at 1024x768 is pretty embarassing…
Having put six or so hours into the game so far, I have to say I like it but it’s not great. I may feel better if they quickly provide a patch that allows the game to support 1280 resolution without the messed up pointer issue.
My biggest gripe is the lack of explanation. The campaign missions don’t really explain what you need to do to accomplish the goals that are set, leaving me sometimes experimenting to try and figure out what I’m not doing right. It seems “hunt and peck” strategy in that I’ve managed to build a town of 20,000 without really understanding the interaction between the various structures. It’s easy to figure out that the flax farm provides flax that the weaver can make tunics out of, but it isn’t clear at all how many weavers a single farm can support.
It works at higher resolutions. The resolution list is in reverse order. Go to the top instead of the bottom.
As noted, it’s difficult to select things at a higher resolution though.
Overall I’m very underwhelmed. Good thing Warlords is fun. Or rather, good thing Civ 4 is fun (since Warlords doesn’t add much)
Yeah I saw somebody offering to represent your wife in a divorce proceeding.
;)
Stronghold economic missions? In fact a stronghold like economy itself is a move in the wrong direction.
No market place building? If you mean like in stronghold, then good. If you mean like no market place bazaar from Caesar III, that is bad.
How does the economy work? Do you have production lines ie: Clay to Clay pots, to painted clay pots (ie: multi-step production)? Do you have trading partners like in other city builders, such that city X wants olive oil where as city Y has marble for you to use?
Are there big city projects in this game? IE: Temples, wonders, etc… opposed to simply saving up enough gold and slapping down a finished hippodrome.
How is the military aspect in it? Is it mostly just defense and making walls or can you proactive invade, conquer or raid enemy cities?
I do not mind figuring out that kind of stuff as long as there are enough cues. After a few harvests, it should be quite apparent.
I must then ask, are these cues here? IE: You see 5 bails of flax on the farm moved to a weaver who slowly reduces the number of bails? I would not like it if I needed to click on each building to see how many raw materials they had.
I think Xemu is referring to the clicking bug. I think it’s a bit innacurate to say something “works” at a certain resolution simply because the game will be successfully displayed at that resolution. Given the fact that it’s practically impossible to play the game at that resolution however means that it’s essentially unplayable.
Right now I just try to overbuild on housing and watch my towncenter for the unemployment lines - that seems like the best indicator. Then check out the local businesses to see how many individuals they use.
— Alan
Ok I picked this up and am having a fundemental problem. No food will go into my grainery. I have 4 goat farms with lots of food and none of it will go into my grainery. I have destroyed and rebuilt the thing a bunch of times in differant spots with differant facings. Why wont food go into it?
Cuz you gotta build butcher shops to cut up the carcasses into lamb chops first.
Personally, I found that CivCity: Rome got way too twiddly the further you got into building up a city. Trying to manage the upper income housing is well nigh impossible, not to mention trying to track the location and reach of all the different resources required by lower- and mid-level housing.
Dude, you know that little book thing that came with the game? It’s called a manual and it explains how the resources work. There’s also a tutorial and help files that do the same thing. Short of the developers coming over and playing the game for you, I’m not sure what more could be done to help with the “fundemental [sic] problem” of someone who can’t be bothered to learn a game when he’s playing it.
-Tom
Cuz you gotta build butcher shops to cut up the carcasses into lamb chops first.
Not only that. People near those shops will get meat from there. Shopkeepers only send good to the granery and warehouse when they have accumulated a certain amount and it’s not getting purchased by the nearby citizens.
Well… the tutorial doesn’t mention butcher shops. It says, build a granary and some goat farms. No mention of butcher shops in the least. Also the butcher ship is on a tab which previously contained nothing and there is no hint that anything was added there.
However, yes, I did not read every bit in the manual. I am kind of a jump in and go kind of guy. So I am guilty of that Tom, why not nail me to a cross and set me on fire next time for commiting such a cardinal sin.
If it is not to much to ask (which may be because I am stupid and can’t comprehend a manual that a new born infant could easily grasp), is there a way to turn off immigration or are we stuck with the cyclic unemployment, leading to a negative growth, leading to a big job demand, leading to positive growth cycle?
I think in the tutorial it does tell you to build butcher shops along with the goat farm.
Ooooh zing!
This is my only issue with the game, if i could figure out how to stop this cycle i’d be a Roman god!
I’ve played pretty much the whole game with a -5 unemployment up until the last ‘building mission’ before Caesar, where I got it down to -2 by spamming the map randomly with towers to get my population up to the mission goal.
Actually, I think the game might have jumped the shark for me with that one. I met the civilization goal in the same way, just placed 100 fountains randomly around the map.
I’m saving that for when you come back with your trademark indepth mathematical analysis to explain in exhaustive detail how the goat farms are overpowered.
-Tom
I know this is a completely cosmetic thing, and ultimately trivial in terms of gameplay, but I hate Firefly’s habit of having complete buildings just plonked down. I much prefer seeing the little clockwork town being built up via building sites, workers fetching and carrying resources etc. More like Settlers or Children of the Nile than the Impressions games.
I understand what you’re saying and all, but nothing compares to the boredom of waiting for your stupid small tomb to be built one frigging brick at a time.